


You’re crashing but you’re no wave

by oximore



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Depression, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Penny + Quentin, lots of Penny and Quentin feels, only distantly follows season 1 but some spoilers maybe, penny is secretly a geek but that's canon, someone tells Q he is bi/pan the poor guy is confused, the boys are bad at feelings, they are all still magicians btw, this is almost fluff I swear the angst level are low
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 21:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9460823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oximore/pseuds/oximore
Summary: Quentin didn't check positive as either a guide or a sentinel when he was a child.  Not that it came as a surprise to his parents - there was no history of either in their families, and they hadn't expected it to be any different with their son.#[Guides & Sentinels AU]





	

**Author's Note:**

> Once again thx to moregeous-kieren for the beta reading - neither of us are native english speaker so I just hope it's decent!  
> Based on the old time favorite trope of Guides and Sentinels: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Sentinel_AU

 

 

 

#

 

Quentin didn't check positive as either a guide or a sentinel when he was a child.

Not that it came as a surprise to his parents - there was no history of either in their families, and they hadn't expected it to be any different with their son. Testing children wasn’t obligatory anymore, not the way it had been barely over two decades ago, but most schools had children tested at least once.

 Parents could refuse now though, and plenty who had either guides or sentinels in their family did because the Center was still far from clearing all the distrust its predecessors had built in some people. But Quentin’s parents hadn’t felt like they had a reason to refuse and Quentin had never cared enough about it to not want to take it either, even as he grew older.

 

#

 

Because the universe loved irony, he tested positive as a guide not long after getting out of his first time spent in the hospital.

There had been a mandatory testing in their high school, because of a few recent cases of teenager sentinels and guides coming online with great trauma thanks to the lack of training and the fear going to the Center still inspired. Quentin had gone to pass it with the same indifference he had for the previous ones but this time he tested positive.

Quentin scored so low on their scale however that it ended up being barely a footnote in their files.

Guides with mental health issues, like heavy non-functional depression, were considered problematic. Even when they scored high they weren’t really desirable and they were usually just dismissed when they scored as low as Quentin had. The woman was trying hard to project a kind aura when she told him about it but it felt clinical, fake and forced to Quentin. He shut his mouth though and watched them go with relief.

He didn't want to be a guide, he always found the whole thing rather creepy, and the idea that he could help anyone’s mind was almost ridiculous when his own was regularly trying to kill him. The New Center, the redone, improved version of the old American organization for guides and sentinels training, was still far from clearing up the old version completely. They didn’t have a spotless record.

They were doing far better than it had been before – forced bonding wasn’t a thing anymore – but they had slip ups, they still tried to make matches, could be more than a little pushy about it and they certainly weren’t free from prejudices. Not that there weren't other countries with worse things in their closet but still, the whole thing had never appealed to Quentin in any way.

His medical record only said _"positive for eva: low results - irrelevant to pursue"._

 

#

 

He wondered about it sometimes though, about guides or sentinels with mental health issues, about the ones that weren’t as usable or functional or whatever terms they wanted to put on them. He wondered how many didn’t made the cut, how many the old Center didn’t even bother to train because of that, how many guides never learned how to properly shield, how many sentinels couldn’t shut their senses on top of their minds fucking things up for them. How many of them offed themselves before reaching forty. The lady from the Center had assured him that if he hadn’t scored so low, they would at least train him, teach him how to control it.

Quentin wasn’t sure he believed her.

 

#

 

Eliot was a sentinel, the top-notch kind, the type the Center usually salivated in advance about. He'd come online in his early teens and could spin the most entertaining tales about the long series of effort the Center had in trying to pair him up. Or the way they had desperately tried to change his mind when Eliot chose to study Liberal Arts rather than some more “sentinel appropriate” kind of major like Engineering, Chemistry, Mathematic or even Sociology. Eliot had a way to make what had likely been a cringe worthy sound hilarious and Quentin was possibly in awe.

 

#

 

Truth was that Quentin hadn’t even noticed Eliot was a sentinel.

Not that he even noticed sentinels the way guides were supposed to do but Eliot was a prime sentinel and he never realized by himself. He only learned about it when it came up in a conversation and as far as Quentin was concerned it said everything that could be said about his abilities as a guide. Quentin had been sporting a pathetic little straight guy crush on Eliot even before knowing that, and the sentinel thing changed nothing. He never brought the guide evaluation up, not because he wanted to hide it but because it wasn’t relevant. There was nothing to hide. He wasn’t really a guide, he was a magician.

 

#

 

Brakebills had its own version of the Center. It made sense really because sentinels and guides who were also magicians had a whole lot of various problems no Center could deal with. The mix of Eliot’s strong telekinesis and enhanced senses for example could lead to potential disaster if Eliot wasn’t as great as he was at handling both. Plenty of sentinels and guides weren’t as good though, and an entire wing of the healers building was meant for them exclusively.

 

 #

 

He couldn’t really explain why, but about a month in Quentin felt like the whole guide thing started to get in the way with his practice of magic. He hadn’t even felt anything much before, some vague impressions, intuition mostly but it was getting stronger now.

Quentin tried to tune it out, badly, up until Penny set a foot in the classroom one day and everything about him was suddenly brighter and Quentin could _feel_ he was a sentinel, could sense him on such a raw level he had no words to actually explain it. The whole room just shifted. Penny winced, zeroing on Quentin immediately before grabbing his arm and dragging him out of the room.

 

 #

 

“For fuck sakes Q,” Penny growled, “your shields are non-existent and your mind is leaking all over the place! How the fuck did no one noticed before?”

“What… no… I… but I don’t need to shield?” Quentin babbled, “Look I’m not really a guide – I mean sure I tested positive in high school but I’m so low on the scale they didn’t even bother with training and I never felt anything before until you were there and…”

The rapid flow of insults that came out of Penny’s mouth cut Quentin’s attempt at explaining but he couldn’t even mind with his head about to implode. Everything was just too much, his mind spreading in a way even magic hadn’t done, his perception of himself and others completely screwed. Penny was like the only clear thing, but it was too clear, too much information he didn’t know how to process.

“Let me guess. You were on meds right? Before Brakebills? And because you’re a dumbass you probably bought into that asshole speech and dropped your pills right away.” He said, looking angry, but somehow Quentin knew it wasn’t aimed at him – well not completely.

He wasn’t scared at all of Penny anyway.

“I don’t…” he started before pausing, talking was becoming more difficult, “wait are you saying my meds are why I checked so low on the guide test?”

Penny gave him an _“are you stupid”_ kind of glare, but Quentin was used to those at this point. It was also hard to care while simultaneously trying to deal with what seemed like sensory overload. He thought only sentinels had those but obviously he knew nothing.

“No. Not really.” Penny said curtly. “That’s not how it works – as far as I know some meds just… look for me it make it bearable, so I guess it’s the same for you. It doesn’t shut it down, but it makes it quiet. Maybe your meds just acted as a shield of some sort, or chemically tuned it down. It’s possible.”

“So what?” he tried, hopeful. “I take my meds again and everything goes back to normal?”

He wasn’t even surprised when Penny scoffed, as if he knew he was going to before it happened. This thing was really, really weird.

“Yeah I don’t think it’s gonna be that simple. This was a full on coming online. No putting the genie back in the bottle now.”

Quentin whined. Of course it wasn’t gonna be simple. When had anything in his life been simple? He could feel it growing, the thing inside his head that had been giving him migraines for the past few days, Penny’s voice seemed red now, which made no sense except that it _did_ , and Quentin was losing grasp of his own emotions in the brightness of Penny’s.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Penny swore wincing, “you need to calm down because you have no shields at all and I think you’re either projecting all over the place or I’m just getting _everything_ so I’m going to try to help you build one. Just try to focus on my voice ok?”

He did, because it was easy, and red, and nearly cried in relief when the world slowly became a bit less overwhelming.

 

 #

 

Ironically, as guide and sentinel, Quentin and Penny were ridiculously compatible.

So compatible in fact that they had basically brought each other fully online thanks to apparently what the Healers assumed to be a weird combo of proximity and Quentin getting off his meds. Both of them were taken to a special wing of the clinic right away, put in those special rooms designed for sentinel senses and guides empathic sensitivity. Then they were given a bunch of tests, training exercises to do and given a quick talk about bonding. Thankfully enough, Brakebills version of the Center didn’t care as much about the whole bonding thing – very volatile magically speaking – but still, Quentin wished he never had to hear the words bonding and Penny in the same sentence ever again.

They would have to train together on a semi-regular basis though.

Penny was a reasonably strong sentinel, probably level A, but completely untrained or at least not traditionally trained. He avoided Centers more often than not growing up, which had probably been for the best considering psychic sentinels were definitely not a thing the Center knew how to deal with. It was a wonder that he didn't zone out more often with all the noise in his mind… Quentin knew Penny self medicated to get that under control, but still…

“I had help ok.” he told Quentin curtly and Quentin was a shit guide but he could read Penny well enough not to push.

 

 #

 

“You’re a guide?” Margo exclaimed as soon as he passed the door.

Both her and Eliot were waiting for him when Quentin came back rather emotionally drained from the little day spent at the clinic. How fast information traveled in Brakebills never ceased to amaze Quentin, especially the way it always fell in her ears right away.

“Do we have to talk about that?” he muttered, not looking at either of them, just wanting to fall in a bed and sleep for a week.

Eliot was uncommonly silent, which Quentin was grateful about because somehow silence was all he wanted right now. They had given him something to help quiet things down since his shields were downright shitty, even for a mediocre guide like him everything felt too much still. It wasn’t like some of his worse lows but there was definitely something similar to it. As much as he hated to admit it, Penny may have been onto something regarding how much of a shit idea it was to stop taking his pills – probably on more than one level. Margo was still waiting for an answer, he knew that, could feel it. He sighed, passing a tired hand over his face and tried to explain.

“I’m really not? Or at least I never thought I was? Look, like, I tested positive in high school sure, but so low on the scales the Center couldn’t care less and I was fine with that. I mean depressed guides aren’t really a thing right?”

“They didn’t even ask about your meds did they?” Eliot asked, his voice quiet and neutral.

“I hadn’t been out of HP for long okay. Pretty sure that’s all the info they needed. And like I said, it was no big deal – I was glad to be left alone. Not like I was much of a guide anyway.”

“Except you were enough of one to drag Penny fully online.” Eliot retorted.

Margo put a hand on Eliot arm and Quentin wanted to say something back, that it was the other way around, that Penny was the strong one, but Alice appeared next to him suddenly, her hand tight around his own arm.

“I think Quentin needs to rest.” She said sternly, before taking him with her back to their floor without so much as a goodbye and Quentin felt so thankful for not having to talk anymore that he could have kissed her.

 

 #

 

He realized that he could _feel_ Eliot now and it was almost astounding to find that Eliot could be even more than he already was.

He already thought Eliot was like gravity, something about him pulling Quentin in, making him desperately want to be worthy of his attention in a way he had never felt in high school around the popular kids. He understood it before, that Eliot was a really strong sentinel on the top of being a ridiculously talented magician, but it was another thing entirely to _sense_ it, a bigger than life yet never overwhelming presence in the house.

 

 #

 

Brakebills Center was nothing like the regular American Center. They didn’t grade the sentinels and guides as obsessively as their mundane counterpart did. Just like with magic, even if there were general rules with both sentinels and guides, they were almost as many exceptions. Prime sentinels and guides were in a class of their own, both because of their rarity and the major gap between them and others.

For the rest they had three zones, plainly named A, B and C in which sentinels and guides were classed. It was a rather general classification, two sentinels from B level could have reasonably different abilities, but Brakebills thought it better than to put each of them in smaller boxes.

“It’s not as fixed as some would like to believe you see.” Professor Lipson explained. “Some guides will react to some sentinels and vice versa without any clear pattern, just like you and mister Adiyodi. It can make their abilities vary, so why bother compartmentalizing too much?”

He saw her point considering he ended up as a B level guide, when he was pretty sure he was supposed to be somewhere down the C level zone. It could have been because he and Penny had brought each other online – Penny was in the A level zone after all – or it could have been well over sixteen other noted occurrences for sudden changes in a guide classification level as professor Lipson told him with a shrug. It was a nice way of saying they had no idea.

 

 #

 

Taking his pills again hadn’t helped as much as Quentin wished it had.

Well, it helped with the depression – that too had been getting worse, as much as he pretended it hadn’t – but being fully online, whatever that meant, apparently wasn’t something he could chemically drown out anymore. Having jumped up in the classification system didn’t help either, which was too bad, particularly when the synesthesia flared up at times.

“Occasional synesthesia as a side effect isn’t uncommon for guides, especially untrained ones.” Healer Faye, the guide helping him with basic training told him.

So he tried to practice the exercises he was given on top of his magicians work, up to the point of exhaustion. He wondered how much of a mess he was for other sentinels, but if he was, well, Eliot was the only sentinel in the Physicals house and he never mentioned anything.

The only fun part was to see Penny struggle with it too, except it wasn’t even that fun because something in Quentin sort of wanted to help him. Probably some guide instincts, since apparently those were not a complete lie. Then again, Penny didn’t seem to be as much of an asshole to Quentin as he usually was so it likely went both ways.

Frankly, it was disturbing, and Quentin hoped they would get back to being assholes to each other again in the near future.

 

 #

 

“Here,” Eliot said gently, warm hands settling on Quentin’s wrists, “you’re doing it wrong.”

He guided Quentin’s hands carefully, showing him where he had stumbled, how to get it right. The sharp little quiver rippling underneath his skin at the direct touch that often happened with Eliot ever since Quentin came online wasn’t distracting anymore. Quentin tried again and grinned when it worked seamlessly.

 

 #

 

Quentin being a guide never really came up on the table again with either Margo or Eliot.

The only time Eliot did something related to Quentin being a guide and him being a sentinel was on one of Quentin’s bad day. It was actually more like the fifth in a long series of bad days if he was honest about it, where getting out of bed seemed like the success of the day. He knew that his shields weren’t as good, that they were getting sloppy but he was too busy being overwhelmed to take care of it. That was about when Eliot came in, without even knocking, which was more like Margo and very unlike him. Eliot somehow cajoled him into getting up, shushing Quentin when he attempted to apologize for empathically spilling himself all over the place. His hands were gentle, and warm and he really, really liked Eliot’s hands but thankfully kept his mouth shut about that. His sad little crush hadn’t gone away as fast as Quentin had hoped it would.

Eliot led Quentin to a room he didn’t even know existed in the house. It felt a lot like the ones they used in the guides and sentinel wing of the clinic, to settle themselves and build their shields back up. There was a couch there, so soft and comfy Quentin felt like he never wanted to move again. They both stayed silent at first, then Eliot started talking and Quentin _listened_. He lost track of time completely but Eliot spent hours helping Quentin carefully rebuild his shields.

“I used to be terrible at shielding myself,” he said, answering the question Quentin hadn’t dared to ask, “sentinels have to shield too, you know that already I’m sure. Not the exact same way guides do I suppose, but if we didn’t we would have sensory overloads all the times.”

Quentin allowed himself to be coddled, distantly thinking that it was difficult to imagine Eliot being bad at anything.

 

 #

 

The next time the guide subject came up on the table, Quentin wished it hadn’t.

"Are you going to bond with him?" Eliot asked him out of nowhere one afternoon.

They were drinking wine near the lake, only the two of them now. Margo and Alice had disappeared somewhere, they had probably said something before taking off, but Quentin was still a bit out of it now and then. His shields were getting better but it was tiring on top of the tedious studies of magic.

Anyway, he hadn’t seen that question coming, even less from Eliot. Maybe Margo, eventually, not that it was the point in the end. Saying that he was taken aback was an understatement.

"What?" he asked ineptly, not misunderstanding the question but not quite believing Eliot was asking in the first place.

 He thought there was an edge in Eliot’s voice, except he must have been imagining it because everything else about Eliot was a perfect picture of nonchalance.

 "What the fuck Eliot?" he added, more alert now.

He could believe those kinds of rumors would happen here in Brakebills too, just because Penny was a sentinel and Quentin a shitty excuse for a guide but he hadn’t expected Eliot to listen to those. Like sure they had made quite an impression when they both came fully online but he had hoped Brakebills was above shitty bonding talks like this.

"That's ridiculous and you know that." he told Eliot, shaking his head and hoping the whole thing was just a weird joke.

"Do I?" Eliot asked a bit too sharply - and he must have been drunker than Quentin had thought because his tone was slipping. "You're a _perfect fit_ after all right? Is it not what they’re calling it? He can feel you almost at all time if he tries too, from anywhere, you already shared the same mindspace and both of your minds are attuned to each other when most sentinels on campus can't even fucking tell you're a guide most of the time. _I_ couldn’t, not really, before he brought you fully online."

“Is this about me not telling you I was a guide?” Quentin asked.

He couldn’t see what point Eliot was trying to make but there had to be one. Though he hid it well, Eliot was one of the least prone people to make random choices Quentin had ever met. Eliot laughed but it tasted bitter in Quentin’s mouth.

“God no, this isn’t what it is about. Let’s call it inappropriate curiosity.”

“I thought you would be the last person to ask something like this, with all your stories about the Center’s dreadfully boring mixer parties and all that. You know that shit doesn’t work.”

“Forced bonding doesn’t work.” Eliot said casually, like none of this conversation was a big deal, “But with off the charts compatibility now that’s a completely different story.”

“I’m fairly sure I speak for both Penny and myself when I say that we wouldn’t bind ourselves to each other like that. So sure, my fucked up guide brain and his messed up psychic traveler whatever sentinel are compatible, that’s great, but that doesn’t mean we want to get bonded Eliot!”

“Well excuse me for assuming considering the amount of time the two of you have been spending together, both in and out of the clinic.”

“Because we’re trying to train ourselves not because we’re planning a bonding! And yes we’re compatible we work well together - I can get him out of a zone and he gets me back to reality when I lose myself – still just two fucked up magicians trying to make the best of this mess. Sorry if not all of us can deal with it as well as you do okay! And since we’re on the subject I don’t even think they would condone us bonding frankly, with me being a faulty unstable guide and his emphasis being so dangerous… ”

The idea of bonding had always seemed grotesque to Quentin anyway. It happening with Penny was almost laughable. They would probably drive each other crazy before the end of the first year, compatibility be damned.

“That’s bullshit.” Eliot retorted emphatically. “You think most of us don’t medicate one way or another here too? You’re not faulty Q.”

“I have chronic clinical depression Eliot.” Quentin said harshly, hating to even have to say it out loud because he still felt ashamed about it somewhere deep in his guts.

“It doesn’t mean you’re _defective_!” He sounded genuinely upset at the idea. “Fuck, this is not where I wanted that talk to go at all.”

That made two of them then, because Quentin hadn’t expected to have this kind of talk either when their comfortable lazy afternoon started earlier that day.

 

 #

 

Things between them were a little tense after that.

 

 #

 

The issue with bonding was that it was both a Disney movie and a horror story put together.

There were some actual facts regarding bonding that explained the social obsession with it. Bonded pairs were statistically stronger, both aspects of them, guide abilities and sentinel abilities more stable which in turns made them more appealing to a lot of people, from the military, to intelligence and basically a lot of governmental agencies. The Disney part was that they played a lot on the idea that bonded pairs would be in a deep, meaningful bond – ironically they only played the true love card when it was a straight pair, which never ceased to amuse the cynical part of Quentin greatly.

Except bonding, as far as they admit nowadays, wasn’t an exact science.

Compatibility could have a lot of explanations but the truth was that they had no certitudes, even with the New Center’s recent researches. Bondings in the US had been more or less actively forced by the Center at times up until the eighties, rather than the deep meaningful bond Hollywood loved to sell. There had been consequences of course. A lot of completely forced bonding regardless of compatibility fell apart in matter of years, but even bonded pairs that were compatibles could weaken, or stop working. The idea that either the sentinel or the guide being unwilling could have consequences didn’t seem to be a concern for decades. Suicide rates had been awfully high despite the sugarcoating and coverage of the successful stories. Quentin supposed that some successfully bonded pairs were enough to cover up the failure along the way.

Had they been in the sixties - Hell even in the eighties - a guide and a sentinel with their level of compatibility who brought each other online, Penny and Quentin would have been locked into a room until they bonded whether they wanted to or not. Thankfully they weren’t and Brakebills had never done that anyway.

“Oh well, magicians did try forced bonding too actually,” Alice informed them one time Kady, Penny and Quentin had ended up talking about it as the four of them were studying, “probably a long time ago though – not in Brakebills - and of course they did I mean, the potentiality of a powerful magician sentinel with a powerful magician guide being more powerful by bonding? Of course some would try it. Except, well, it had issues even for non-magicians right, forced bonding? And apparently with magicians? It got ugly faster, and on a much larger scale. So yeah, it’s a big no no magically speaking.”

“Gosh that’s so fucked up I can actually believe it. Dumbass people thinking about more power.” Kady muttered shaking her head and Penny nodded in agreement.

It made sense somehow - not the bonding part, but it made sense that magic would have consequences with bonding too. Quentin felt how his magic reacted sometimes, when he was in a certain state of mind, sad, or angry, how it could grasp reality more sharply. He didn’t have to put in too much effort to imagine how dangerous it could be.

 

 #

 

 Because he was apparently a big nerd in cool guy clothing, Penny called them _drift compatible_ \- which ok, Quentin wasn’t going to admit it out loud but he could get behind that.

 

 #

 

Quentin wasn’t mad at Eliot, but he started to wonder if Eliot knew that.

Ever since their mess of a talk near the lake he seemed curiously distant at times, while managing to be quietly overwhelmingly present at other times, though Quentin wasn’t sure the second wasn’t just a guide thing. There was nothing Quentin could pinpoint clearly – he was not that kind of guide, he was so far away from Eliot’s sentinel level it was irrelevant - but he could tell something was off. But between some Hammer charm of Legrand and endless Popper exercises he never found the will to actually ask.

 

 #

 

“Dear god this is why I should never leave Eliot without surveillance.” Margo muttered as she barged in Quentin room.

“Okay?” he said inanely, probably because on an instinctive level he thought agreeing with Margo was generally a good life plan.

Which he wasn’t ashamed to admit was true.   Margo could be pretty terrifying.

“Look Q, Eliot is clever, Hell let’s not ever tell him that but we both know Eliot is brilliant and yet he can also be downright stupid about some things.”

“I’m sorry?”

“And he is even worse when he… Anyway, I still can believe he asked you that! I know he may have acted like the worst kind of sentinel jerk but he isn’t. I just wanted to be sure you knew that.”

“Is this about the lake thing?” he asked, “Because it’s okay you know, like… we were drunk and Eliot can be a bit of an asshole at time. It’s fine. I mean, I’m not like, angry about it. Fuck does he think I’m angry about it?”

Margo gave him a long appraising look, the kind that always made Quentin wonder if he had answered correctly or missed something along the way.

“You’re really kind of oblivious for a guide.” She finally said sitting on Quentin’s bed and patting his legs.

Quentin frowned.

“Yeah well,” he settled on saying when he figured out she wasn’t going to expand on that, “I thought that bit was already common knowledge? But I was kind of hoping I was at least a half decent friend?”

She chuckled, shaking her head.

“You can’t really blame him though, I mean if you knew about half of the rumors we heard on about Penny and you…”

“Oh god,” Quentin groaned, “Margo I’m pretty sure I really don’t wanna hear about that right now – not ever if possible in fact.”

“One of my personal favorite,” she continued, ignoring Quentin, “was one about how Penny, Kady, Alice and you had this wild polyamorous relationship going on - which apparently means a lot of foursomes for some wonky guide and sentinel reason. It was a very detailed kind of rumor actually, quite inspired and weirdly specific. Now you should have seen the face Eliot made when heard about it…”

Quentin threw a pillow at her.

 

 #

 

So, the whole waiting for crushes to go away that Quentin usually swore by? It wasn’t really working. He wasn’t even sure this still qualified as a straight guy crush (and yes it was a thing despite Penny telling him it wasn’t) if the recent dreams he had were any indications. Not that dreams always had to mean something – Quentin was aware he had some pretty weird ones – but self-denial had its limit, even for him. And feeling weirdly jealous of your male friend’s boyfriends while having very graphic dreams about said guy friend on a semi-regular basis in between your more heterosexual dream of your girl crush was probably hinting toward him not being as straight as he thought he was.

 

 #

 

Quentin handled the whole thing perfectly by ignoring it completely.

 

 #

 

When things went out of control in Brakebills, it went out of control _fast_. So Quentin was almost killed and Penny almost died in his place, which was all very dramatic already without Eliot’s fling of the moment turning out to be possessed and homicidal but what were even their lives at this point?

 

 #

 

“I hope you realize this is gonna make the rumors so much worse" Quentin said with as much humor he could muster considering the day they just had and everything going to shit. "Like, people are going to go nuts over this, with you getting between me and that knife like a good sentinel.”

Penny groaned. He was still on a huge amount of painkillers, which was probably for the best considering vines had been growing out of him not too long ago.

“I wasn’t kidding about stabbing you before, just get me something and I can work on it right now.” He mumbled weakly and Quentin snorted.

“I know I’m hardly the best guide but I’m not _that_ shitty.” He told Penny, shaking his head with a smile at Penny’s bullshit.

 

 #

 

Eliot zoned out more often afterwards. Quentin knew it was fairly normal, posttraumatic stress and all that, but Eliot refused to address it in any other way than drinking himself into oblivion. Both Margo and the university tried more than once to get him to accept a temporary guide but he had been so downright awful to the student guides sent his way that all of them had given up. Thankfully, he usually seemed able to shake himself from the zone on his own, one way or another but it could take an increasingly long amount minutes.

“Come here,” Margo said dragging him up the stairs as soon as he passed the door of the house.

“What the heck Margo?” he asked her, stumbling to follow.

“Eliot is in a zone. Has been for over thirty minutes now and he is clearly not shaking it off this time.”

“Fuck.” Quentin swore because they had all been worried it would happen at one point and Quentin knew past thirty minutes the risk of falling into a sort of coma was getting higher. “Wait why aren’t you calling the clinic?! They need to send a guide!”

“For fuck sakes Q you are a guide!”

“I’m an average guide who has no idea what he is doing most of the time! Eliot is a prime sentinel!”

“You’ve gotten Penny out of zone plenty of time!”

“Because Penny is easy ok!” and oh god that sounded so much better in his mind.

Margo barely sent a glare his way, which in itself told Quentin how worried she was because she wouldn’t have let that one go otherwise.

“Look, you’re here, he is used to you. Hell, it will probably make him feel safer if it’s you!”

"Do you even know what he was focusing on when he zoned out?" Quentin asked, vaguely recalling about variations between touch, sight, smell or sound sensitive sentinels.

Eliot was probably a combination of all five being a prime sentinel and all, but it couldn't hurt to ask.

"I'm not sure Eliot even knows what he was focusing on." she said bitterly. “Look, just try okay? He will focus on you more easily. And if really it doesn’t work, I will get the big guns from the clinic.”

 

 #

 

Truth was that Quentin hadn't successful brought back many sentinels from zone out.

Even during training, when they made him try he mostly failed with some exceptions here and there but the successful ones always felt like lucky accidents and never like he was starting to get better at it. He understood the theory of it but he always ended up mucking things up in practice.

The only sentinel Quentin could successful get out of a zone every time was Penny, but it didn’t really count. Seeing how easy it was for Penny to anchor himself onto Quentin it hardly took any effort at all. Bringing him back down from a zone out was, well, _easy_ , the trickiest part being to get him to _not_ to travel while zoning.

When he entered the room he briefly wondered how Margo had managed to get Eliot there. The room was softly lit, and felt just as Quentin remembered it.

Eliot was disturbingly still, sitting on the soft special couch. Quentin knew it wasn't going to be easy with Eliot, in fact he was terrified of somehow making it worse, fucking up something important. He just wanted to call the clinic, people who would know how to help Eliot. They had two prime guides on campus and either of them would be better suited for this than Quentin. It wasn't like Eliot was in any state to be an asshole about it. Fact was that Quentin was already quietly freaking out. The only higher kind of sentinel he had ever helped was Penny, and that didn’t really count.

Eliot was way above Penny’s level.

Quentin gingerly went to sit next to Eliot, noticing how Eliot didn’t so much as blink, no apparent signs that he even realized he wasn’t the only one in the room. This was bad.

Zoned-out sentinels he had been around before had been conscious, even if somewhat distantly, answering questions, giving indications or just complaining if they were called Penny. Eliot’s face was blank and his pupils were almost completely blown – he remembered Jaye calling it mydriasis – except Quentin couldn’t be sure it was only the zone out at fault here and not whatever substance Eliot had taken today.

“Eliot?” he tried as gently as he could.

At a B level, Quentin should have been able to put some amount of compulsion in his voice. Unsurprisingly Quentin wasn’t really good at it, which explained his low success at getting sentinels out of a zone. Eliot didn’t move, blink, or acknowledge Quentin’s presence in any way.

“So… I really don’t know what to say. I know I’m supposed to talk but then again the sentinels I worked with generally answered when I did that. And even then it didn’t always work… Which makes you being frozen kind of problematic here…” he babbled, hands nervously pushing his hair behind his ears, hoping for something, anything really that would indicate Eliot at least heard him. “I tried telling Margo this wasn’t a good idea but, well, you know Margo – I mean, can people even say no to her? Does that happen?”

He reached out for Eliot’s hand. He probably should have done this earlier considering how clear it was that hearing and smell only weren’t going to be enough. Not all A level sentinels had enhanced touch sensitivity – Penny didn’t – but Quentin was pretty sure all prime sentinels did.

“She’s really worried by the way, I mean we all are. I just have no idea how to talk about it with you, you know? Not that you’re really good at it either. And yes, I know I’m the guide here, in theory this is what I’m good at… but we both know its bullshit. Anyway, Margo tried to talk to me about that time at the lake a while ago, which was weird because I wasn’t upset about it anymore by then. Sure you can be an asshole from time to time but that fine, I don’t mind, I know I can be kind of shitty too.”

He knew he was rambling, his fingers idly playing with Eliot’s unresponsive ones, worried the low growing panic he could feel in his guts was going to make things worse if his shield were to waver. Lowering some of his shield, even partially, could either help or aggravate the situation and Quentin wasn’t sure he wanted to take that risk.

By lowering his shields Quentin would feel Eliot more and as much as it could potentially help Eliot focus on Quentin more clearly, it could also make Quentin slip. Eliot was kind of like a well, most people only saw the ripples on the surface, rarely aware of what was going on underneath, or how deep it was. Even though Quentin knew a bit more than most, he had no illusions about knowing everything. He knew just enough to worry about getting swept away by Eliot’s emotions if he was to lose control of his empathy.

“Is it weird that I’m kinda starting to miss Penny insulting me when I get him out of a zone? It’s almost better than this… I haven’t felt so utterly useless in a long time…” he muttered dejectedly before almost jumping out of his own skin when Eliot’s fingers slightly tightened around his.

“Holy shit.” he whispered, nearly holding his breath.

Eliot’s pupils were a tiny bit smaller, his head angled towards Quentin.

“Q?”

Eliot’s voice was hoarse and low, sounding far away yet finally not impossibly out of reach. Quentin could have wept with relief.

 

 #

 

It took a long time for Eliot to come down, even after he started to respond to Quentin. The huge discrepancy between their respective levels was quite plausibly to blame. When Eliot was about halfway there, Quentin suggested getting a more experienced guide to switch with him but Eliot’s hold on Quentin’s hand tightened painfully as he articulated a very clear no.

“You’re easier for me to focus on.” He said later.

Quentin wasn’t sure what to do with that.

 

 #

 

Getting out of the room left him disoriented.

He hadn’t realized how much it took for him to work Eliot out of his zone, nearly losing balance as he walked out, Eliot’s hands stabilizing him right away and not letting go. Apparently he had unconsciously lowered his shields, partially at least, because the need to put them back up made itself known right away. He did it approximately, it would have to do for now.

“Finally!” Margo cheered and wow, he hadn’t expected everything to be so blue.

“Bambi,” Eliot said, “I know there is a lot you probably want to say but it’s going to have to wait.”

He sounded much better now. Quentin felt a little proud about that. Except that Eliot’s voice was a very pretty green, which probably meant Quentin had overdone it and needed to crash soon.

“Don’t you “Bambi” me Eliot! Do you even realize how close this one was?”

Margo’s blue was everywhere again. It was distracting.

“ _Margo_.” He heard Eliot say with a clear emphasis on her name now.

They were probably talking in that silent way of theirs but Quentin was struggling to stay on his feet and wasn’t paying as much attention to it as he usually would. They must have agreed on whatever it was they were arguing about though because the next thing Quentin knew Margo was opening the doors for them as Eliot half carried him to his room. That would have been embarrassing had he been in any state to care, but Quentin just absentmindedly commented on sentinels being _really_ strong. Which, ok, was an entirely different kind of embarrassing. He would regret that tomorrow.

He thought he felt a hand in his hair and heard someone whisper _thank you_ as he fell asleep but he couldn’t be sure.

 

 #

 

Quentin figured he had to go to the guide wing of the clinic for a check-up the next morning if the mind-blowing migraine he woke up with wasn’t enough of a hint. Alice came with him, probably to make sure he arrived there in one piece – better safe than sorry considering some of the most recent events – and he did still felt a bit woozy.

He couldn’t explain to the Healers how he had been able to get Eliot, a prime sentinel, out of a zone without fucking up something major. The Healer guide doing the checkup was clearly surprised, and oddly mindful when telling Quentin it wasn’t as impossible as he thought it was.

“Most of the time sentinels react around guides of the same level it’s true, but there are a lot of exceptions and variations to the rules with sentinels and guides. Some sentinels will react based on… well… emotional connection to a guide rather than based on proximity in levels.”

His check-up turned out to be adequate enough once his shields were correctly put together again and his empathy stopped being all over the place. He was told he needed to mostly to rest, to eat and avoid strenuous magic for a while. Quentin nodded at the right moments and left trying not to obsess over the bit about _emotional connection_.

 

 #

 

Unsurprisingly, he obsessed over it.

“You still look kind of off Quentin.” Alice told him looking genuinely worried as walked away from the clinic. “Are you sure you’re shields are back on? Is it about Eliot?”

He wasn’t sure what to tell her – how did one talk to crush one about crush two? So he settled on the next best thing and groaned. Alice sighed.

“I mean, you weren’t able to get him out of the zone just because you’re a guide, you know that too don’t you? I was wondering about it before - he shouldn’t have been able to shake those previous zone’s so easily, not unless he was anchoring himself on a guide - on you. It makes sense actually.”

“I’m glad one of us think so.” He muttered, avoiding the quick glance Alice sent his way.

“Please Quentin, even you aren’t that oblivious. And I can see the way you look at him sometimes. Anyway, if you don’t do anything about it now Margo will probably take the matter into her own hands. She looks pretty close to her breaking point. And I think I talk for all of us when I say you really don’t want to bring Margo to her breaking point.”

 

 #

 

“You do know you need to actually _talk_ to him.” Penny said deliberately slowly like the condescending asshole he enjoyed being.

Quentin didn’t know why he thought coming to see Penny before getting back to the house had been a good idea.

“I mean, am I the only one _not_ surprised you would be able to get Eliot out of a zone? He won’t say shit about it of course, because he is one of the most prideful convoluted dudes I have ever met. Fucking prime sentinel. He so closed-off even I can’t get a read on him at all but it doesn’t take a genius to get why it would work with you. You just need to grow some balls.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Quentin lied through his teeth.

He was not overly surprised when Penny just snorted.

“Yeah… That would be a lot more believable if I couldn’t already hear you freaking out in my head. Your shields are for shit today.”

 

 #

 

“You were with Penny.” Eliot said with a scowl.

It took Quentin a second before remembering, _right_ , sentinel senses, wonderful.

Eliot looked better, which didn’t mean good just yet, pale and clearly on edge still, but better was enough. It was the first time he had said something reminding Quentin that he was a prime sentinel. It was a little disturbing how in control he must have been all the time for it to only slip when he was that exhausted after such a long zone out. And a little distressing to think about how much Eliot could know.

“Uh… is it ok to be both impressed and low-key freaked out that you can smell him on me?”

Eliot winced, as if just realizing what he had said.

“Sorry,” he told Quentin with a shrug, lips twisted in a sneer. “Most of the times I try not to think about all the thing I can smell.”

“I can take a shower?” Quentin tried.

It left an unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth that Eliot would apologize for being who he was. Quentin hated himself for making Eliot feel like he had to in the first place. It wasn’t Eliot’s fault if Quentin was a dumbass that just grasped what prime sentinel senses actually implicated.

“It’s fine Q.” he insisted with a small smile.

Quentin stayed still when Eliot moved closer. His arm fell on Quentin’s shoulders, comfortably heavy, leading them toward the kitchen.

“What you need isn’t a shower, no, what you need right now is food.”

“You knowing that would be really weird, if I didn’t know Margo had ears everywhere.”

“Margo knows everything. Even when she doesn’t she will probably make you think she does anyway.”

Quentin believed him. Margo wasn’t a sentinel but she certainly had her ways.

It had always been easier to let Eliot do his thing, so Quentin did just that, smiling when Eliot insisted on making him something to eat. Food unsurprisingly turned out to be pasta but it was really good pasta and Quentin was more famished than he thought.

 

 #

 

They didn’t talk about it right away. Quentin couldn’t help but find reasons in his head why he was probably misunderstanding everything because there was no universe in which Eliot would be into Quentin.

 

 #

 

 By a surprising turn of event, Eliot was the one to unblock the situation. Sort off.

 

 #

 

“So, we should talk.” Eliot started casually enough to fool most people.

Quentin wasn’t sure when he had become “not most people” but he could tell Eliot wasn’t quite as casual as he wanted to project. How strangely guide-like of him.

“Let’s be honest - I intended to get fully drunk before having this talk but sadly it would only increase the risk of me zoning out before getting to the actual point so I’m doing this sober.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing Eliot…” Quentin said carefully.

“Yeah, Bambi said that too.”

“Oh.”

“Well then I should start with saying thank you for getting me out of that stupid zone I had gotten myself into before I ended up in a coma. Which would have been terrible I suppose?”

“I’m just glad I didn’t fuck something up like –I’m not good at it and well, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do something but Margo insisted.”

“Of course she would.” Eliot muttered.

“I wanted to call a better guide but…”

“No. She was right. I… I kinda used you as an anchor before when I zoned out. She knew that.

“What?”

“I mean, I know you, and you live here. Just focusing on you was enough for me to shake it off and I thought I had it under control. Except I guess we know now that I really didn’t.” he scoffed. “Margo wanted me to talk to you about it. She’s been pushy for a while now and getting annoyed at me for “not making a move” which is ridiculous, what is she even trying to say and…”

So _that’s_ what Margo had been trying to say when she had come to talk about their disaster of a talk at the lake.

“Oh God this was a terrible idea…” Eliot muttered and was clearly about to bolt out of the room.

Quentin decided to listen to Penny’s advice for once, his hand reaching for Eliot’s tie before dragging him down into a kiss.

 

 #

 

He briefly panicked because Eliot was _a touch sensitive prime sentinel_ meaning that Quentin could have just made a terrible mistake. But before Quentin could pull back and apologize, as if Eliot sensed he was about to step-back, he was grabbed and kissed back hungrily.

 

 #

 

Turned out Quentin hadn’t fucked up as much as he thought. Possibly not at all if the way Eliot was trying to rip Quentin’s clothes off his body and licking inside his mouth were any indications. It was like one of his dreams except for the fact that it was really happening and he had pretty much no idea what he was doing.

Then again, he rarely did anyway.

 

 #

 

“How is it not distracting?” he asked later.

“Hum?” Eliot hummed distractedly, hands still playing with Quentin’s hair.

“Your senses I mean, like, even just me being there. How does it not get overwhelming?”

“Are you asking me if I find you distracting Q?” he asked playfully and Quentin glared at him.

Or at least tried to. It was kind of hard with Eliot naked in his bed, smiling crookedly and the afterglow still not completely gone. He felt dizzy and focused at the same time and couldn’t help wondering if it was a guide thing. He wasn’t sure he felt like going to the clinic to ask about that.

“You’re not distracting, well not in the way you mean at least. See when you’re close to people, the way they sound, the way they smell, it all becomes familiar and I guess our brains process that information easily. That’s why Bambi won’t overwhelm me, or Alice, hell even fucking Penny is probably fine.”

“And me.”

“And you. _Obviously_ ,” He said vaguely gesturing to the both of them in the bed. “Are a little more than just fine.”

 

 #

 

“It wasn’t about you being a guide, in case you were worried about that.”

“I wasn’t.” Quentin said honestly.

He hadn’t even thought about it that much before. It’s not like they were even that compatible as guide and sentinel, except for Eliot anchoring himself onto Quentin. It should not even have been helpful but it worked. _Emotional connection_. Or something. Quentin hadn’t entirely wrapped his mind around that yet but he knew he would have to tell Eliot just to see his reaction.

 

 #

 

“Fucking finally.” Penny said the next time he saw Quentin.

“Oh my god,” Quentin squealed, “Please tell me it’s not the smelling thing.”

“Yeah well, it’s totally the smelling thing.” Penny said making a face.

“I took so many showers!” and Eliot wouldn’t stop smiling like the evil sentinel he clearly was because he’d told Quentin he smelled _fine_.

Quentin was going to have words about that.

“I can tell that too actually. You had to know the whole privacy thing was kind of non-existent around sentinels. It’s not like I want to know that you two finally boned it out believe me, but maybe now Eliot will stop glaring at me when he thinks I can’t tell.”

“You’re such an asshole.” Quentin muttered darkly.

“Well I’m the asshole that may have found a way to Fillory, so sit your ass down and listen.”

 

#

#

 

“So,” Margo said with a smirk that presaged nothing good, “did you hear? Apparently you’re cheating on Penny with Eliot? There are bets going on about Eliot and Penny fighting it out already.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

He knew she probably wasn’t. She was looking way too amused for it not to be true.

“Though I will say the one about Alice supposedly cheating on you with me – which, honestly she should be doing already – is probably my favorite.”

Quentin groaned ignoring Eliot’s laugh in the background.

 

 

#

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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